Plan the trips, do not retype them.
Transport and logistics runs on planning, paperwork and exceptions. A trip that changes, a driver waiting in a lay-by for a document, a customer calling about a shipment your system says arrived yesterday.
We build what sits in between: between your TMS and your bookkeeping, between the office and the cab, between what was planned and what actually happened.
Growth shows up first on the planning board.
A haulier with fifty trucks usually still runs the systems it had at fifteen. That works, because the planners know their trade. Until a new client arrives with their own portal, their own file format and their own delivery windows.
From that moment the manual work grows faster than the revenue. More than half of Dutch companies in this sector cannot link inbound shipments to planning automatically, and 82 per cent expect their current TMS to fall short within five years. You do not notice that as an outage but as a planner working late and a margin quietly eroding.
Every new client costs you half a planner.
What makes it harder is that the money is already committed. Most of what you spend on software goes into keeping what you have running: licences, an integration that needs maintenance, a vendor who charges per change and works to their own schedule. Little is left for the work that would actually save hours, and that gap widens every year.
Meanwhile the trade itself is tightening. Fewer drivers are coming in, family firms stop without a successor, and the clients who remain demand more. That is exactly why we look at where the hours go before we touch any software: every exception you automate is an hour you no longer have to hire in.
What we build for hauliers.
Not a new TMS: you already have one. The part around it that your package does not do and that now goes by hand.
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A driver app that works offline
Trip, stops, loading and unloading, damage photos and a signature on screen. Under a bridge or on a site with no coverage it simply keeps going and syncs once there is a connection, without duplicate notes.
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A planning board that fits you
A screen where you drag trips, see which truck is where and immediately know what a change means for the rest of the day. Built around the way you plan, not the way a package does.
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A customer portal for shipments
Your client checks where their shipment is, downloads the signed CMR and submits new orders. That stops the phone ringing all day with the same question.
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Integrations with shippers
EDI, an API or that one fixed file format a customer has used for fifteen years. We build the translation, with a log showing what came in and what happened to it.
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Documents and customs
Waybills, export documents and customs declarations filled automatically from what is already in the system. Less retyping, and an archive where you find a document without opening a folder.
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Result per trip
Waiting time, extra stops, kilometres and surcharges against the revenue. Visible on the day rather than in the quarterly figures, so you can adjust a rate before the quarter ends.
Four things we hear a lot here.
Not because it is badly organised, but because the systems in this sector were rarely built for each other. There is nearly always a person closing the gap.
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The planner is the integration
Orders arrive by email, portal or EDI and get typed into the TMS by hand. That works until someone is ill or it gets busy. More than half of the companies in this sector cannot link inbound shipments to planning automatically, and that retyping easily costs a planner a day a week.
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The driver works on paper
CMRs, loading notes and signatures only reach the office once the trip is done, sometimes days later. Meanwhile nobody can tell a customer whether it was delivered, and the invoice waits until the folder is complete.
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Every customer wants something else
One wants a portal, the next a daily export, the third an EDI message in their own format. Standard packages handle two out of three, and for the rest someone is manually placing files somewhere every morning.
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The margin does not add up afterwards
Waiting hours, extra stops, loading metres and surcharges do not all make it into the invoicing. Only at the end of the quarter do you see that a trip which felt busy earned nothing.
How we usually start here.
Not with a project plan, but with a day alongside you. In the office with the planners, and a trip along if we can.
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A day on the planning desk
We sit next to the planner and watch what comes in, what gets retyped and where it goes wrong. Usually that one day already surfaces two things you can fix without software.
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The smallest piece first
Often the driver app or a single integration with your biggest client. In use within a few weeks, so you find out whether it fits before we build further.
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Then the rest
What it delivered decides what follows. We work in short rounds and you decide each round what is next. Stopping is always an option; everything is in your name.
What it connects to.
You replace nothing that works. We connect to what is there: the TMS, the bookkeeping, the on-board computers and your clients' systems.
If your package is not listed, that is rarely a problem. If there is an API, a database or even a fixed export folder, we can get in.
- Portbase The port community system for Rotterdam and Amsterdam; pre-notify containers and pull statuses.
- Cargonaut The same principle for air freight through Schiphol.
- CargoWise Heavy forwarding suite; we connect through their API or message stream.
- Transporeon Slot booking and tenders from large shippers.
- Descartes Customs and route planning, common on international loads.
- Boltrics 3PL Dynamics Built on Dynamics, so we get in through the standard API.
- Transpas Pull trips and orders out, write statuses back.
- Qargo A modern API, so connecting is usually quick here.
- Simacan Share live trip positions with your client.
- nShift Carrier selection and labels across hundreds of carriers.
- On-board computers Pull in kilometres, driving times and fuel automatically.
- EDI (Edifact) Translate shipper orders into what your TMS expects.
- Peppol Send e-invoices the way large clients require.
- AFAS / Exact Invoices and hours into the books without retyping.
Is your system not on the list?
That is rarely a problem. If there is an API, a database or even a fixed export folder, we can get in. Call with the package in hand and we will tell you within ten minutes whether it can be done.
Questions from this sector.
If your question is not here, give us a call. You get someone who built the integrations themselves.
Book a callDo we have to replace our TMS?
Almost never. Replacing a TMS is expensive and risky, and the problem usually is not the TMS but everything around it that happens by hand. We look at that first. If it will not deliver enough, we say so.
Does the driver app work without coverage?
Yes. Everything a driver enters is stored on the device and only sent once there is a connection again. We build that sync so a note never arrives twice or half, even if the app closes in between.
Our client wants EDI. Can you do that?
Yes, and in practice it is more often an old fixed format than a modern standard. We build the translation to what your system expects and give you a screen showing what came in, what was processed and what got stuck.
Roughly what does this cost?
A driver app or a single integration usually starts around fifteen to twenty-five thousand euros. A planning board or portal sits above that. In the first conversation we tell you which bracket your question falls in and where the uncertainty is.
Who maintains it afterwards?
We do, if you want. The party that builds it is also the party that picks up when it misbehaves at five in the morning. We have fixed agreements for that, with response times that suit a transport company.